EXCLUSIVE: Transgender woman to sue city for $3M for failing to protect her from male inmates at Rikers Island

Transgender woman Chanel Austin is suing the city for $3 million, saying guard failed to protect her while she was an inmate at Rikers Island.

A transgender former Rikers Island inmate plans to sue the city for $3 million for allegedly failing to protect her from predatory male inmates last spring.

Chanel Austin, a 36-year-old transgender woman from the Bronx, alleges that she was unfairly moved out of the transgender housing unit and put into an all-male unit. There, one inmate broke a chair over her back, another tried to rape her and others threw urine and fecal matter into her cell.

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Austin's ordeal began when she was arrested in March 2015 on grand larceny charges and couldn't post bail. She was put in the 30-bed transgender housing unit at Rikers.

But she was suddenly moved out of that protective unit to an all-male unit after another inmate stole her Walkman.